Biological and Medical Data Analysis 5th International Symposium, ISBMDA 2004, Barcelona, Spain, November 18-19, 2004, Proceedings

Thisyear, the5thInternationalSymposiumonMedicalDataAnalysishasexperimented an apparently slight modi'cation. The word "biological" has been added to the title of the conferences. The motivation for this shift goes beyond the wish to attract a diff- ent kind of professional. It is linked to recent trends to produce a shift within various biomedical areas towards genomics-based research and practice. For instance, medical informaticsandbioinformaticsarebeinglinkedina synergicareadenominatedbiom- ical informatics.Similarly, patient careis beingimproved, leadingto conceptsandareas such as molecular medicine, genomic medicine or personalized healthcare. The resultsfromdifferentgenomeprojects, the advancesin systemsbiologyand the integrative approaches to physiology would not be possible without new approaches in data and information processing. Within this scenario, novel methodologies and tools will beneededtolinkclinicalandgenomicinformation, forinstance, forgeneticclinical trials, integrated data mining of genetic clinical records and clinical databases, or gene expression studies, among others. Genomic medicine presents a series of challenges that need to be addressed by researchers and practitioners. In this sense, this ISBMDA conference aimed to become a place where researchers involved in biomedical research could meet and discuss. For this conference, the classical contents of former ISMDA conferences were updated to incorporate various issues from the biological ?elds. Similarly to the incorporation of these new topics of the conference, data analysts will face, in this world of genomic medicine and related areas, signi'cant challenges in research, education and practice.